A Fuzzy Analytic Network Process (FANP) approach for prioritizing internet of things challenges in Iran

Recent years have witnessed a huge upsurge of interest in internet of things (IoT) throughout the world. This shift has led to the emergence of new challenges associated with this novel paradigm. They all need to be addressed properly by experts and scholars in the field. In this paper, an integrated approach using fuzzy analytic network process (FANP) was applied to carry out the following tasks: first, to identify the most important IoT technology development challenges in Iran and secondly, to prioritize the aforementioned factors. The implemented approach took into account that technological factors, privacy and security issues, business related factors, legal and regulatory challenges, and cultural elements are the main factors which have an impact on IoT technology development. Besides, it was also taken into consideration that several correlations among the aforementioned classes exist. The results indicate that “technological” and “privacy and security” challenges are the most significant factors which affect IoT. Furthermore, “business model”, “architecture and design” and “education and training” were ranked as the most considerable sub-factors respectively. •Discussion of current and future Internet of Things technology development challenges.•Categorizing the identified challenges into five distinct classes.•Prioritizing the aforementioned challenges employing a fuzzy analytic network process method.